2.5 on Linux

Dalayan Beginner

A quick note: I know nothing about making a post look nice. For those who can, please feel free to dress this up a bit.
For those familiar with Linux, the Wine version from apt, winetricks, and mono all will not work. Neither will the DirectX implementation built into Wine. The rest of this guide will be written in such a way (I hope) that those unfamiliar with Linux would be able to get SoD 2.5 running.
This guide assumes you have an existing EQ folder, the 2.5 patcher, and the directx_Jun2010_redist.exe installer.

Open PlayOnLinux
Click 'Configure'
On the 'General' tab, click 'New"
Click 'Next'
Select '32 bits windows installation' and click 'Next'
Select 'System' and click 'Next"
Name your virtual drive. I called mine 'sod' and will reference it as that from now on. Click 'Next'
PlayOnLinux and Wine will set up your new virtual drive.

Still in the PlayOnLinux configuration window, select the 'Wine' tab and click on 'Configure Wine'
The Wine configuration window will open.
On the 'Applications' tab, change the Windows version to Windows 7
Click 'Apply' if available, then click 'OK'

In the PlayOnLinux configuration window, switch to the 'Install components' tab and install 'dotnet40'
When this completes, close the configuration window.

Now open your Home folder. Click the 'Show Hidden Files' button at the top of the window.
Navigate to '.PlayOnLinux/wineprefix/sod/drive_c'
Note the '.' preceding PlayOnLinux.
Copy the following to this location:
Your EQ folder
sodpatcher.exe
directx_Jun2010_redist.exe
Also, while your here, create a new folder titled "directx"

Now you should be able to open PlayOnLinux and start the sodpatcher from there by selecting it and clicking 'Run"

If this fails anywhere throughout this process for not having internet access, you may need to install lib32nss-mdns or uninstall libnss-mdns from the Software Manager. This is a known quirk that occurs rarely and only with AMD processors, or so I understand.
If it still fails for this reason, open your file manager and navigate to /etc/hosts. Open as root. You will see:

If you dont see anything else, you'll need to add a line just below the two 127.0.0.1 lines. Make it look like this:

127.0.0.1 localhost
127.0.0.1 [your host name]
192.168.0.23 Hydra

Replace the '192.168.0.23' with your computer's IP address, and replace 'Hydra' with your host name.
To find your info, I'm afraid I'll finally have to as you to open a terminal.
Open your terminal and enter 'ifconfig' and press 'Enter'
Beside 'eth0', on the second line, find 'inet addr:xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx'
This is your IP address.
Now type 'hostname'
The result is your hostname
[Several lines for IPv6]

Now reboot and open PlayOnLinux from your Application Launcher. Select 'sodpatcher' and click 'Run'

Dalayan Master

Step 1: Getting Linux
Get your Linux distro of choice (I use Ubuntu 14.04 LTS) -- many versions will be workable, some steps may need adjustment. Run your software updates/all that other stuff you do when setting up a new OS.

Install ttf-mscorefonts-installer -- note to accept the EULA you need to use tab and space to agree to the terms.
sudo apt-get install ttf-mscorefonts-installer

Install cabextract
sudo apt-get install cabextract

Step 3: Setting up your Virtual Drive

Open PlayOnLinux

Click Configure

Click New

Chose 32-bit Installation

Chose System version of Wine (we already took care of installing the Wine packages you need)

Name your virtual drive (mine is named Shards)

Step 4: Configuring your Virtual Drive

In the Configuration Panel of PlayOnLinux selected the virtual drive you just set up

Click the Wine tab and choose Configure Wine

Under the Graphics tab, click "Emulate Virtual Desktop" and put in the resolution you prefer.

Under the Applications tab, change your Windows version to Windows 7, apply, and return to the Configuration Panel

Click the Install Components tab

Install dotnet40

Install dxfullsetup

Install d3dx11

Install dinput8

Step 5a: Installing Everquest (from scratch)

In the Configuration Panel click the Miscellaneous tab

Select "Run a .exe file in this virtual drive"

Find your EQ_setup.exe and run it

Set up your SoD directory (I use C:/Program Files/Shards of Dalaya/EQ Client)

Skip the DirectX installer (click cancel)

The EQ patcher/installer should run at this point, put in your Daybreak Games info and get the game installed (if the installer isn't accessing the internet more likely than not you are missing the 32-bit libnss-mdns -- here is a list of the terminal commands to fix this for a variety of Linux distros)

Step 5b: Installing Everquest (by transferring a prior install)

In the Configuration Panel click the Miscellaneous tab

Select "Open virtual drive's directory"

Set up your SoD directory (I use C:/Program Files/Shards of Dalaya/EQ Client)

Select your sodpatcher (this will create a shortcut to the patcher on your desktop)

Once the EQ Installer has finished downloading the client....

Run the patcher using the shortcut you just created (if you copied over a prior install and the patcher isn't accessing the internet, more likely than not you are missing the 32-bit libnss-mdns -- here is a list of the terminal commands to fix this for a variety of Linux distros)

Point the patcher to the correct directory (for me this is home/user/PlayOnLinux's virtual drives/Shards/drive_c/Program Files/Shards of Dalaya/EQ Client), select repatch all

Step 7: Play SoD

For two-boxing I recommend copying the virtual drive and simply running two completely separate instances.

May fail to enter fullscreen if refresh rate isn't specified -- you can add the refresh rate manually to eqclient.ini e.g., "FullscreenRefreshRate=60" where 60 is the appropriate rate for your graphics setup.

The /petition command isn't functional (it opens up the in game browser as if it ignored anything written past /petition) -- /guidehelp should be used instead to petition -- FIXED by installing dinput8

Dalayan Beginner

I followed these steps for Linux Mint 17.3 Mate, and as of this posting, the installation works great! I copied my SoD 2.5 folder over from Windows to my Linux install, so I did not install while within Linux. I have not tested how the game performs yet, but I can confirm that I was able to reach my selection of game characters with no problem.

Edit:
After successfully loading one player character in the Warrens zone, the game crashes after about 30 seconds. Repeated attempts had the same results. The textures for the environment looked odd. Changing video size worked properly.

Edit 2:
Apparently, re-booting the system took care of the stability issue. I experimented with two different player characters, and both worked for at least 5 minutes.

Edit 3:
I experienced crashes with a Wizard character in the Warrens. Putting a check mark for "Disable Sound" in the SoD Patcher before loading the game seemed to stop the crashing. My sound card is integrated with my computer's main board, so that might be the issue.

Dalayan Beginner

As a summary, I roughly followed Haenir's directions, used Wine 1.8 Stable, and turned Texture Quality in Options to "Medium." This was a fresh install with Linux Mint 17.3, MATE.

On my previous attempts in a prior posting, I had been using Wine 1.8 Staging. One problem with that was the lack of a PulseAudio driver. I also endured several crashes, since to my understanding, the Staging branch can be worse than the Development branch. Similar to Wine 1.8 Staging, there was a lack of the audio driver with Wine 1.7 Stable.

I did try Wine 1.9.6 Development this time, but I couldn't reach the "Character Select" screen. However, I believe that had to do with the Texture Quality being set to High. Tinkering with the Options, I was able to get a resolution of 1024 x 768 with audio. I haven't done significant testing while in game with a character, but it looks clean so far.

Dalayan Beginner

Two things I will focus on: (1) getting Alt + Enter to work for Fullscreen and (2) making it easier to switch between applications. I tried these under Linux Mint 17.3.

(1)

The 2.5 client may have trouble discovering your Refresh Rate. This will prevent you from going Fullscreen. I think this happens when the Refresh Rate is blank when changing the Video Mode. In "eqclient.ini", you will need to set "FullscreenRefreshRate" under "[VideoMode]" to something other than zero, perhaps 30 or 60. I suggest making a copy of your "eqclient.ini" file and rename it "eqclient.ini.old" or whatever before making adjustments. The following is what I had to use:

If your Linux distribution is like mine, then switching between software things can get messy. For this, the Wine configuration window helps. Just enable "Emulate a virtual desktop" and put in your desired resolution.

When switching applications, I have to Minimize everything first through CTRL + Alt + D, and then, I can choose the window that deserves my attention. A benefit is better than none.

I still haven't worked out zone names, either. My hunch is that zone names are hard-coded somewhere and the SoD names are accomplished by DLL injection. Finding a solution for that is way, way out of my league.
When I asked a couple of devs about it, the response was that SoD is not supported under Linux. No matter what question I asked, the same answer was given. However it is they accomplish the zone name changes, they seem to wish to keep it close to the vest.

Dalayan Beginner

The quest for [A Gift for the Gruploks] is botched for me in Linux. On the third part requiring a turn-in of 5 Murk Leech Meat items, I can not in Linux. I copied my game files to my Windows 10 system. When I ran SoD in Windows, it worked just fine.

Dalayan Master

Dalayan Beginner

having issues here. when I try to run the patcher installer it crashes and I get this error
Error in POL_Wine
Wine seems to have crashed

If your program is running, just ignore this message

Step 5a: Installing Everquest (from scratch)

In the Configuration Panel click the Miscellaneous tab

Select "Run a .exe file in this virtual drive"

Find your EQ_setup.exe and run it

Set up your SoD directory (I use C:/Program Files/Shards of Dalaya/EQ Client)

Skip the DirectX installer (click cancel)

The EQ patcher/installer should run at this point, put in your Daybreak Games info and get the game installed (if the installer isn't accessing the internet more likely than not you are missing the 32-bit libnss-mdns -- here is a list of the terminal commands to fix this for a variety of Linux distros)

Dalayan Beginner

Is this still operational? Is it worth trying to get 2.5 running under Mint 18?
-----------------------
Completed install under 18.1 without any issues. I have noticed that the Character Load Screen shows old zone names(Felwithe instead of Athica). Will continue testing.

Dalayan Elder

Dalayan Beginner

Anyone currently running on Linux? Trying to install and I'm having dotnet issues with sodpatcher.exe (guessing the version of dotnet that was working when Haenir posted this no longer is correct for the patcher)

Edit: dotnet 4.6.1 works
Edit2: looks like the CPUAffinity settings for eqclient.ini aren't applying when run using the setup described in this thread --- use the taskset command -- e.g., taskset -cp 0,1,2,3 29027 -- in terminal instead to manually set affinity to multiple cores (game was cpu lagged otherwise)

Dalayan Beginner

For those using Linux and trying to get the Steam version of Everquest downloaded -- here is how to force Steam to download the game past the OS restrictions Steam uses (alternatively try installing the Windows Steam client with wine). This method basically tricks Steam into believing Everquest is already installed, but in need of an update, which forces Steam to download the game.

Find the AppID of the app you're trying to download. This can be easily done by going on SteamDB and searching for it. As of this posting the AppID for Everquest is 205710.

Go to ~/.steam/steam/SteamApps or wherever your main SteamApps folder is.

Create and open a new file called "appmanifest_APPID.acf", replace APPID with the actual AppID you found in Step 1.

Copy and paste the following and replace APPID (the all-caps one) with the one you found in Step 1 and APPNAME with the folder name to download to:
"AppState"
{
"AppID" "APPID"
"Universe" "1"
"installdir" "APPNAME"
"StateFlags" "1026"
}

Save and restart Steam, once the game is downloaded you should find it in ~/.steam/steam/SteamApps/common/APPNAME